Boy On Stage
by hijackersbeware
Summary: ROTG/HTTYD AU! My breath hitched. Those glowing blue eyes were on me. Looking at me. Seeing me. I could have it written it off as him simply looking around the crowd. But inside of me, I knew it was more than that. A bright smile drew across his face. This smile appeared to reserve especially for me.


My very first HOTYD/ROTG fanfic. Actually, that's a lie. I have another one that I'm typing up. This is the first one that I have posted. Ah, I acquired the muse for this particular story by listening to When You Were Young by The Killers over and over again. It's a beautiful song and it gave me this story. I was thinking of making this completed here, but I'm not sure yet. I'll see what people say on here and on Tumblr. If I were to continue this, the next chapter would be in Jack Frost's POV. Or something like that. If people receive it well, I'll type it up.

* * *

"Will you stop sighing so damn much? You're practically filling up my car with steam from your breath."

I managed a half glare to my best friend, Astrid, who in turn greeted me with one her cocky smiles. Maybe best friend was pushing it. More like neighbors-who-had-once-dated-but-decided-it-wasn't-working-out-and-now-on-cordial-terms-with-each-other. Yeah. That explained it better. Anyways, I was seriously considering taking out that cordial part and simply leave it at that. But I was too much of a 'goody-goody' (her words, not mines) to do something like that. And since I was so much of a goody-goody that I stayed at home every weekend with my pet dog, Toothless, rather than go out clubbing or partying or whatever normal teenagers did on their weekends, she took it on herself to forcibly drag him out of the comfort of his warm home and into her large blue dingy she liked to call Stormfly.

I rubbed at my rather thin biceps. She had literally dragged me out. Damn that blonde girl was strong. Noticing my discomfort, that cocky grin appeared more. I wanted to wipe it off her face. But we both knew it was impossible. Even if she was driving, Astrid could take me on and win humiliatingly. I was never the physical type, which in my town, was like near social suicide.

I lived in Berk my entire life. Its entire population and standing stood on one thing: sports. It didn't matter which sports it was. Football, basketball, soccer, tennis, golf, swimming, even badminton. Everyone in town relied on physical strength and sports to determine who was who. If you didn't play a sport, you might as well be invisible. Which, sadly, I was. I never picked up on the physical nature of sports. Hell, I didn't pick up on the mental nature of sports. It just wasn't my thing. I was always scrawny with thin, long limbs. I had scruffy brown hair that sometimes seemed to be red when I was in the right sunlight. I had green eyes. Nothing too special about that. The only worthwhile thing I have to say about myself if the multitudes of freckles that seem to spring all over my face. I swear at least two more spring up each day. I was the poster-child for nerdy loser. Nothing like people my age, who were mostly made of meat and muscle. I would never be able to fit in. That fact probably killed my father more than it did myself.

As cliché as it may sound, my father is no other than the other mayor of our dear town. Dear Stoick Haddock. Some infamously call him Stoick the Vast. And with good reason. My father is huge. He's easily three times my size and two times my height. He's a burly, hairy man with deep brown hair that wants to grow over his entire face. He ruled with an iron, but efficient, fist. It's probably why everyone kept voting for him. He expected much from me, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III. Yeah, laugh if it you want, but that is my name. I'm more infamously titled Hiccup the Useless by, well, everyone. I'm clumsy, weak, and rather airheaded. Nothing like my father. It must hurt him to have such a useless son.

I sighed, alerting Astrid of my thoughts. A sudden punch came to my shoulder. I winced. "Okay, ow!" Even though I kind of didn't mean it. This was how Astrid showed her emotions. Weird, but she wasn't the captain of the female karate team for nothing. And the captain of the female's archery team. And the soccer team.

"You're thinking again."

"Well, you know, technically, it's impossible NOT to think. Even if you try not to think, you're thinking about not thinking."

She didn't find my little comment amusing as she rolled her eyes and blew some of her bangs from her eyes. "Well, then, how about thinking about something useful, Mister Smartass? Like what you're going to do at this party we're going to."

I managed to flinch a bit. I didn't want to think about our destination in mind. I would much rather be at home, drawing or playing with Toothless. But Astrid was adamant on taking me to this party after an hour drive. She knew I didn't like parties, awkward that I was. But that didn't seem to process. She wanted me to experience new things. Whatever. I huffed, staring at the snow falling on the passing terrain.

"Why are we going all the way to-…What's this place called again?" It sounded stupid, I remember.

"…North Pole."

Yep. I was right. "Okayyyy. Why are we going all the way to…North Pole…to go to some party?" Astrid flipped her hair in annoyance. I know I may have asked this question a thousand times before but I just needed to try to figure out a way to weasel my way out. Even if we were half way there.

"I told you already. A cousin of mines invited me to the party. His band is playing. We don't usually see each other since he lives a bit far away. But tonight was perfect."

"Hmm…" I would have asked more about the mysterious cousin who owned a band but I was too amused by the snow flurries that were falling outside. I heard Astrid give a small snort of amusement. The snow had always captured me ever since I was a child. When I would stand outside, I could be in the same spot for hours staring at the white snowflakes. It was mesmerizing. I couldn't imagine anything any more beautiful. In the distance I heard Astrid turn on her radio, a song I didn't know the name of but would never forget begin to blast on.

You sit there in your heartache  
Waiting on some beautiful boy to  
To save you from your old ways

Thirty minutes later we pulled into the parking lot of an average building. It was two floors of neon blinking lights. As soon as I stepped outside the car, I could smell the foul scent of alcohol. I only touched the stuff once. I ended up barfing into Toothless bowl. The black dog didn't come to me for days after that. A couple of teenagers were outside, mingling. Most went inside because of the drop in temperature. But it was no longer snowing to my own disappointment. I could already hear the rock music pounding against the walls and windows. I pointed narrowed eyes to Astrid. She huffed.

"Just give it a try, Hiccup!"

"I didn't say anything," I said, holding my hands up in surrender. A half smile moved across her face. For a second, I had gone back to the time when we were dating. She had been beautiful in my eyes. Her glorious blonde hair and green eyes. That cold and frank attitude had been so attractive to me. But it simply didn't work out. No one knew we were dating. We had wordlessly agreed it would be too much if others knew. Hiccup the Useless and Astrid the Vastly Talented and Beautiful. We wouldn't make it past the school courtyard. I guess that's why our relationship was doomed from the start. I felt that she was trying to cover up the fact that she was dating me. And she probably felt like she could change me by dating me. We were both wrong. But what we did have in that time was somewhat fun. It was now over. We left on cordial terms and that was that.

The second we entered the building, I begin to cough because of the smoke. I wasn't much of a smoker either. Astrid gave me a few energetic pats on the back. I winced. More like painful. But she was trying to help. Some kids acknowledged our existence. A few of the daring ones glanced between Astrid and me as if trying to figure out what relation was between us. I doubted anyone believed we were dating. We weren't but it was the thought that count. I shoved my hands in my pockets. My eyes glanced to Astrid. Rather than being concerned with what people were probably thinking her eyes were going over the party. Probably looking for her cousin. Since I didn't know what he looked like, I looked at the party for what it was.

I didn't know anyone but Astrid at the party. The kids looked like that all jumped off the popular train. Nice clothes, small bodies, beautiful faces. It was ruined by the drugs hanging from their mouths. I didn't see a single person I could possibly relate to. Not surprisingly. My eyes ran over the interior of the building. Now that I was inside I could see that it was something like a home. Most of the furniture had been moved. But I still saw a dining table and a couple of pictures hanging around. As Astrid began to walk around, I trailed after her like a lost puppy. I didn't like to be so reliant. But I didn't know the first thing about partying. Sometimes Astrid said I was like a social rock.

As lights flashed in our face, music blasted down my eardrums. It wasn't exactly the type of music I liked. It had no meaning only about mindless beats and good tone. I prefer for each song to have a deeper meaning. If it wasn't meant to be by the writer, then the singer should at least try to put some emotion behind it. Maybe I'm just overthinking it.

You play forgiveness

Thirty minutes into the party and I was already ready to leave. I had somehow managed to lose Astrid in the growing crowd. The party didn't just stop in the building. It bled out to the outside. The cold apparently didn't stop the people from enjoying the outside. They held red plastic cups that no doubt held illegal liquor, no doubt. Some were huddled around a fire, talking amongst themselves. So far I managed to talk to exactly two other people. A dark haired female who looked amazingly like Astrid, but she had a softer personality. I probably could have fallen in love with her if it wasn't for the fact that she had a nameless girlfriend on her arm, who was the other person I semi-talked to. Out of the infinite amount of people around, I called this a success.

Just as I was about to give up and sit near Astrid's car until she came back out, I finally spotted her. She just finished talking to some guy. Before I could get close to get a look, the guy was gone. Astrid's eyes turned on me and she greeted me with one of her rare happy smiles.

"The party hasn't destroyed you yet, Hiccup?"

"Oh, it's getting there."

"Well, my cousin is coming on now." So that was the guy she was talking to. "We can listen to him and then go."

I rubbed the back of my head. I felt bad because I was the reason she couldn't enjoy the party. Another thing Hiccup the Useless managed to mess up. "Well, we don't have to leave immediately. I mean I think I'm blending into this sort of…cool type crowd. It's really getting to me." Her expression told me just how much she believed that.

We moved with the crowd into the largest room in the eyes. My eyes caught a hanging chandelier on an impressively high roof. In the dimly lit room, I could see a makeshift stage standing to the front. A couple of band members were already on stage. There was an extremely tall male that was stringing a bass guitar. He had long light brunette hair, pulled into a ponytail. He was wearing cargo pants and a gray shirt with a large black bunny head on the front. I couldn't tell precisely, but it looked like he had rabbit's foot charm around his neck. He looked like a serious individual if his scowl meant anything. A rather short female holding the bass guitar nearly hopped to his side and engaged him in conversation. She looked like the poster child for rebellious teenager. She had a multitude of blue and greens in her shoulder length hair that bounced every time she moved. She was perky individual that moved from place to place as if she had wings. She wore a rather strange outfit that had a frilly skirt and corset like bodice. She also had strange large teeth earrings hanging from her ears. She appeared to be on the keyboard. An even shorter, round male was tending to the drums. No. He was sleeping on the drums. He had disheveled golden hair. I couldn't see much of him, but he was very small and round. The female gently jostled him awake. It seemed like they were about to go on.

"Which one is your cousin?" I asked Astrid.

"He's not up there yet."

I frowned, eyes going back to strange combination of people on the stage. By now, I was a bit interested in this band. I mean, we didn't have any teenage bands in Berk. Of course, the teens were too interested in bashing each other's face in on the sports team to worry about creative things like music or art. It was nice to see it was just Berk's own deficiencies that music wasn't an important part of the world. And I was curious about Astrid's cousin. What made him want to join a band? Maybe he even started it. I know that Astrid would never do something like that. Not that she couldn't, but she would put sports before something like that. It was hard to imagine anyone related to her would do it as well. What did he look like? Did he have blonde hair like her? How were they related? What kind of music did he like? Did he play sports? Why a band? Could we be friends?

I'm afraid that by the time the band begin to play (the mysterious cousin still missing), I had created a complete profile and appearance for the other. I knew I could be wrong. I knew nothing about the boy other than the fact that he was Astrid's cousin. I didn't even know his name. The mystery gave me something to look forward to whenever he came up. If he came up.

The crowd was growing restless. Even the band members seem to be concerned over their missing member. The bunny's deep scowl had even me wince. The other band members didn't seem to mind much. The female was even smiling, playing some nameless tune. And the sleepy guy was sleeping once again. After five minutes, I was tired of waiting. But my want to see Astrid's cousin had won out. I'm afraid to say I was a little obsessed with this late, obviously slacking male band member who was related to my ex-girlfriend.

All of the sudden loud music began to blast in my ears. The band had begun to play all at once. In sync, they banged and pulled at their instruments. My skin seemed to jump at the raw feelings pouring from their hands. I couldn't tear my eyes away. This was more than just a couple of kids getting together on their free time to make an impression. Each was telling their own story in a beautiful collaboration. I didn't know music could affect me that way.

I wasn't the only one. Everyone begin to scream and shout in response. Even Astrid, who I never seen get so worked up over anything that didn't have to do with sports, was giving out shouts of exacerbation. I was silent. I couldn't get any words out, even if I wanted. I didn't need words, lyrics, or verbal translation. I felt it go through my veins, pouring out emotions I didn't know I could feel.

A roar of screams snapped me out of my daze. My gaze shifted and for a second, I had believed that snow had traveled into the middle of the room.

That was my first impression of Jack Frost.

Watch him now, here he come

It wasn't snow that blown in, but a boy. A boy a few years older than my average age of 15. A boy with snow white hair. His hair was a pure white, not grey, nor silver, but white. It wasn't a trick of the dim lighting as his hair glowed. It was swept in a tidy messy on his head, brushing over his eyes. His eyes, oh his eyes. They glowed as well. A bright, yet dark, blue that told everyone what he was feeling. A hint of mischievous playfulness glowed in those eyes. To me, it was just as a trap as it was opening. He wanted to bring others in with those eyes, yet still push them away. His cocky grin stretching over the pearly white teeth matched the glowing eyes. His skin was unnaturally pale, also glowing in the dim light. Everything about this boy was glowing in my eyes. To others, there might not be something so bright about his rather plain blue hoodie and brown kargo pants. But he was something to me.

He doesn't look a thing like Jesus  
But he talks like a gentleman  
Like you imagined

My breath hitched. Those glowing blue eyes were on me. Looking at me. Seeing me. I could have it written it off as him simply looking around the crowd. But inside of me, I knew it was more than that. His mischievous smile briefly disappeared as he stared down at him. I wondered if I did something wrong to have him lose his smile like that. I didn't want him to stop smiling. It didn't seem natural for him to not to smile. Even though we had never met before this day. But then a bright smile drew across his face. This smile appeared to reserve especially for me. Like we both had a secret that we shared with each other. Like I was the only person of this screaming crowd of rambunctious teenagers. Like he was about to singing this next song just for me. I felt my face go red even though I didn't know why.

And that's when the idiotic me fell in love with the boy on stage.

When you were young


End file.
